Any Way You Slice It

Méabh McDonnell was born in Dublin and grew up in Loughrea, County Galway. She has worked with the Clare People newspaper as sub-editor and children’s books reviewer, and founded and edits cindersmagazine.com. She has an MA in journalism and is the Children's Book Manager in Charlie Byrne's Bookshop, Galway. She lives with her husband and son in the Galway countryside next door to a castle. Her 2025 novel, Any Way You Slice It, was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Teen and Young Adult Book of the Year 2025. In 2024, her novel Into the Witchwood won the School Library Group of the Literacy Association of Ireland Great Reads Award.Lauren O’Neill was born in Wexford Town and is an illustrator of many children’s books and covers. Her expressive work is traditional at heart, with a touch of digital wizardry. She loves drawing characters and mushrooms, and telling stories through her art. She has illustrated many books including Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, which won the Children’s Books Ireland Merit Award for Illustration, and Blazing a Trail which won the Children's Book of the Year (senior) Irish Book Award in 2018.www.laurenipsum.ie

a perfect romcom, sweet, light and surprisingly filling. There are recipes scattered throughout, like currants in a bun, and they make this love story even more scrumptious (I’m planning on attempting Carrie’s Seed Cake pièce de résistance). Lovers of gentle romance will find this a very satisfying treat and though we’re listing this in the YA/14+ category it could be enjoyed by readers from the age of twelve